Beware of employing the 'tipping culture' at your pub

As a nation we simply are not receptive to the tipping culture and many feel that we are being forced to adopt the practice because we’re trying to be more like America, a nation that long ago embraced the act of tipping and whose people will give more or less depending on the quality of service they receive.

In contrast, we feel like we’re being ambushed. Many feel they have to tip even if they’ve received poor service, and then simply use the Internet to leave a bad review.

It’s all made worse by the growing practice of outlets adding a ‘discreet service charge’ to the bill, a little trick my wife almost fell foul of a few weeks ago.

As it has been the school holidays we’ve been out and about with the children a bit more than we usually would and, on one particular occasion, stopped for a meal on the way home.  At the end of the meal our waitress handed my wife the credit card machine, with the screen already set for my wife to enter an amount for ‘Gratuity’.

Ali began to type in a figure that equated to ten percent but stopped when I leaned over and pointed out to her that, at the bottom of the bill, a charge of 12.5% had already been added to the amount.

Our waitress simply stood there with her hands behind her back, suddenly very interested in something unbelievably fabulous on the ceiling.

When tactics such as these are employed to get customers to pay, or increase, a tip it’s no wonder a negative attitude is being taken by our customers; with so many already convinced we are a greedy industry, guerilla tactics to pay for the staff Christmas Do are unsurprisingly frowned upon.

Now, my pub is a predominantly wet-led venue in a small, peaceful village where the staff don’t expect tips, although there’s no denying they are grateful for the occasional crumbs of 1p and 2p coins left by some begrudging patron who hasn’t been sure whether they should leave a tip for their egg baguette or not.

And we are near two large American air bases that provide a strong, regular stream of customers desperate to experience a quaint British pub and who, when they first appear in the pub, are only too happy to offer an extra £1 in service for their pint of real British beer.

But I watched, amused, one evening when some of my customers became frustrated with a pretty American lady who kept leaving a generous tip with each glass of wine she purchased. “Don’t do that,” one whispered, leaning in to the young lady in that conspiratorial way only people who’ve had a tipple or two are capable of, and speaking as quietly as they could so that the entire street can hear.
“Why not?” came the innocent response.

“Because,” the regular tried to whisper, “if you keep tipping him then, eventually, he’ll expect us to as well. And we don’t want to do that.”

I’ve never tried to make my pub part of the ‘tipping culture’. It’s not an environment I’ve wanted to create for my customers and I’ve never wanted to put my staff in a position where they feel they should act like Snidely Whiplash in order to bolster their pay packet.

Perhaps, if we didn’t try to fool customers by hiding service charge policies in point-2 sized font on the back of menus, automatically adding amounts to their bills or presenting them with card machines already begging for more money to be added, the notion of giving a tip would become more palatable.

And then our visitors might begin to give more generously.